A Quiet Place (2018)

While watching A Quiet Place, it occurred to me that most cinemagoers would not survive an hour in silence, myself included.

The horror film focuses on a family who live in isolation near a town that has been decimated by blind creatures who hunt via sound. So they have to live in complete silence. The monster is a mixture of the Xenomorph from Alien (1979) and the Demogorgon from Stranger Things (2016-), but with bigger ears. One of the children is deaf, which creates complications for the family as she cannot hear if she is making noise, or if the creature is near. The film was supposed to be terrifying and thought provoking. But to be honest, the whole time I was questioning the premise. So they have to be quiet – exactly how quiet? What about noisy bodily functions? The most intimate of details were left out and I think that was a mistake – you know everyone was thinking it.

However, the film was quite beautifully made, and well acted by real-life married couple John Krasinski and Emily Blunt. They also managed to find great children to act in the film – this helped the scarier scenes have tension, rather than make it cheesy as some child horror actors do. Especially significant was that they chose a deaf actress to play a deaf character for authenticity, which deserves praise. All in all, a very watchable horror (even for someone who hates horror). But I think it is better to watch this one at home without the popcorn, candy-grabbing cinemagoers ruin the tension – Emma Rzepecky.